Abstract

At school entry, girls are rated by teachers as more competent on measures of social skills than boys. It is less clear if this higher rating is stable or grows over time. To address this question, multiple group curve of factors models investigated gender-specific growth trajectories across seven waves of measurement in a large, longitudinal sample (N = 1024, NICHD SECCYD). Results showed that girls’ social skills were consistently rated higher from kindergarten to sixth grade, and the effect size was moderate (latent Cohen’s d = .37 to .62). Boys demonstrated greater heterogeneity in social skills at nearly every grade with the gender difference in variability stable after second grade. An examination of gender differences in growth trajectories showed that boys demonstrated a linear decrease over time, whereas girls’ social skills did not significantly change over time after accounting for initial level of social skills in kindergarten.

摘要

在入学时，教师认为女孩在社交技能方面比男孩更有能力。目前尚不清楚这个较高的评级是稳定的还是随着时间的推移而增长。为了解决这个问题，多组因素曲线模型在一个大型纵向样本（N  = 1024，NICHD SECCYD）中调查了七波测量中的性别特定增长轨迹。结果表明，从幼儿园到六年级，女孩的社交技能一直被评为较高，并且影响大小适中（潜在 Cohen's d= .37 至 .62）。男孩在几乎每个年级都表现出更大的社交技能异质性，二年级后性别差异的变异性稳定。对生长轨迹中的性别差异的检查表明，男孩随着时间的推移呈线性下降，而女孩的社交技能在考虑到幼儿园的初始社交技能水平后，随着时间的推移没有显着变化。